Sunday, July 31, 2011

That is not a good compromise

We have been working with Moira on how to compromise. It seems to be helping when she is with other kids, or possibly she's just verbally adept enough now to convince them to do what she wants. There are still two major problems for her.
1) Boys. Considering that she's still obsessed with weddings, and is waiting for her husband to show up so they can go to Seattle and get married, I would expect her to be a little more interested in boys. Instead she seems to be getting more and more antagonistic towards them. Yesterday at a birthday party, she refused to get into a bouncy house because there was a single boy playing with multiple girls inside it. She also refused a wagon ride because she would have had to ride with another boy (who was very confused by her refusal). I think this is some of the reason she frequently tells me she "hates Daddy" and also why she likes to tell me that she doesn't want to see my friend's son, who she appears to have decided is the "everyboy" and blames for everything bad any boy between the ages of 2 and 6 has done to her. On the plus side, she has no problem with boys under two, so maybe she just likes younger men. I should tell her she'll have to wait longer for her wedding that way.
2) Us. I don't try to explain about compromise too much when she's angry/sad/overtired, but she has started suggesting her own compromises in the midst of her screaming. For instance, today she and Walker were getting ready to go outside, when Walker got distracted and Moira decided it was a better idea to watch TV. We said no, and suggested some other alternatives, playing a board game, going for a walk... She said no and said "How about I watch Arthur by myself and Daddy fast forwards through the dinosaurs. Is that a good compromise?" She suggested it three more times before I suggested that maybe calming down before we decide what to do would be a good idea, and how about Daddy reading her a book.
I'm hoping that if we can get her to start understanding how to negotiate, it will cut down a bit on the screaming fits. Especially since the current best way is to remove whatever thing was causing the repeated, long drawn out screaming. That wasn't really an option when clothing was the problem, so instead we had to force her into getting dressed (and putting shorts under the dresses), and I doubt it will work well with her current problem with drinking water, since we keep going places where other people are drinking non water things.
Anyway, I'm rambling now, so I will leave you with a picture of her in the wedding dress I made her for dress up. She has only put it on once, and it was specifically so I would take pictures of her in it, but hey, that's better then her previous plan to save it for her wedding.

3 comments:

okay, i'm deadly curious because i foresee a future with this same fixation in my household: how does the wedding thing happen? i know it's probably useless to try to avoid it (since it seems to strike in every kind of home), but having an idea of potential genesis moments would be very handy for preparing for the ride, i think.

cute dress! I think the boys thing is normal for that age - they are starting to form their gender identity, and its partially in contrast to the opposite gender. I wouldn't worry about it too much, it should fade in a while.